Glimpses of the Multipolar World, 12 August 2023
Admissions. India. Course. Memory. Losses. Author Life. Ulysses.
Each week in my newsletter, I offer seven glimpses of world history in the multipolar world. This week, I share glimpses of:
The Big Story. Admissions of Defeat by NATO.
Governing the Multipolar World. India and Niger.
Using History Mindfully. Special Offer on My Online Course.
Fragments of the Burning Archive. Memory is a Siren Recall.
What surprised me most. Staggering Losses by Ukraine.
Gratitudes and Works-in-Progress. Independent Author Life.
Reading and Closing Verse. Tennyson, Ulysses.
Have you checked out my books?
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Bureaucrat: Writing on Governing
my book of essays From the Burning Archive: Essays and Fragments 2015-2021.
my collected poems, Gathering Flowers of the Mind.
I have given Amazon links for convenience but these books are also available on Booktopia, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and other online retailers.
So, on with the newsletter….
1. The Big Story
The big story of the week is the admissions planted in the media that NATO is losing the war in Ukraine. Jon Sciutto, the main security correspondent for CNN wrote this story, presumably with clear directions from his networks in the American national security establishment. It referred to “staggering losses”, and no gains at all. Other more honest outlets have documented the scale of this failed offensive in which tens of thousands of Ukrainians have died in the service of ill-conceived American grand strategy. The article politely admitted the unrealistic nature of these plans:
These latest assessments represent a marked change from the optimism at the start of the counteroffensive. These officials say those expectations were “unrealistic” and are now contributing to pressure on Ukraine from some in the West to begin peace negotiations, including considering the possibility of territorial concessions.
But this failure has not led to ideas to fix the problem, but rather fears that Americans might be fixed with some of the blame.
Some officials fear the widening gap between expectations and results will spark a “blame game” among Ukrainian officials and their western supporters, which may create divisions within the alliance which has remained largely intact nearly two years into the war. “The problem, of course, here is the prospect of the blame game that the Ukrainians would then blame it on us,” said a senior western diplomat.
Will NATO elites learn the right lessons from this tragic history, the ruin of Ukraine? It seems unlikely. The US has this week deployed troops to Iran; and the anti-diplomat Nuland to Niger. They seem to be egging on some uncertain West African leaders to intervene militarily in a foreign country to restore democracy. Republican candidate Nikki Haley ranted hatefully that China is the enemy and needs to be broken up, despite her single digit ratings in voting intentions. More Americans oppose intervention in Ukraine than support it; but the American imperial war faction still insists they will send Ukrainian soldiers and American faux mercenaries to die for as long as it takes. Will they ever learn?
There is an excellent video report by Alexander Mercouris of the bleak, deluded response of Western elites, and some of the shocking examples of the West urging Ukraine into the Valley of Death to achieve some apocalyptic triumph of the will. I will return to the topic of the war in Ukraine, but am restraining any comment until at least the end of August, by which time, I have thought for some time, a clearer assessment can be made. However, you may wish to revisit my article from February 2023, “The West’s Grand Illusions in Ukraine,” in which I wrote:
Truth will disperse the illusion. It may take weeks. It may take months or years. But, at some stage, there will be a reckoning. The end of World War I was not good for the deluded European imperial elites. The end of the war in Ukraine will not be good for the imperial American elites. They have spent too long spinning the virtual realities of manipulated news – ‘America makes its own reality’ – to deal with the realities of a changed multipolar world.
They have been exposed as incompetent in waging war with a peer, in fielding diplomacy with independent nations, in framing economies that serve people not bubbles, and, finally, in telling their own people the honest truth. Tragically, the grand illusions of this leadership elite will outlive the conscripted soldiers of Ukraine, that dispensable nation that betrayed itself in search of American glory.
You might also want to listen again to my podcast from June 2022, Clash of Civilizations in Ukraine - What if Russia Wins?
2. Governing the unruly multipolar world
Two quick observations on governing the multipolar world this week.
There is an excellent discussion with former Indian diplomat, MK Bhadrakumar, on India’s role in the multipolar world, hosted by Norwegian international relations and Russian scholar, Glenn Diesen.
I have been keeping an eye on Niger situation, and am concerned that a military intervention may occur. The Nigerian Senate has opposed this intervention, but there is some support reportedly from the President and US affiliated interests in the much larger Nigeria for such an invasion of a sovereign country. There have been street protests against such an American inspired plan. It would likely be a disaster, and draw several poor countries in West Africa into a war to maintain Western resource exploitation of these countries. Let us hope it does not happen, but I would estimate the odds as more than 30 per cent.
3. Using history to live mindfully in the present.
I have now released my full Mindful History course on my Learnworlds academy.
I am offering a special introductory price of $49 for this course, in which you will get three hours of video content and some great resources, including a simple five step process to apply history to decision making in your life.
In addition, as a SubStack reader and member of the Burning Archive community you can also enter the coupon code '“Burning23” and get the course with an extra 30 per cent discount.
In the course I discuss the power of stories in making sense of the past. Stories are complex cognitive machines, and we, humans, are a narrative animal. The first step I set out in my five-step framework to use history when making a decision is to ask, “What is the story?”
Stories yield insights; but they also lure decision-makers into traps, especially if they fixate on a simplistic story that does not grant reality to all the forces and players and chaos of real history.
Historical narratives have lured the American leadership class into such thinking traps in their war in Ukraine, just as they did European elites before World War One, and any number of elites around the world on other occasions. There are some powerful narratives about history that mesmerise and mislead people. For example, Ukraine is fighting a war of national liberation, like a replay of the American war of independence. Russia is an evil empire run by inhuman dictators, like a replay of Stalin or Ivan the Terrible. America is the apotheosis of freedom, democracy and Western civilization, like Rome or Athens in its heyday.
My course will help you make up your own mind, and to avoid such thinking traps, through curiosity, empathy, intuition and judgement. Check it out.
4. Fragments of the Burning Archive.
On the podcast this week I remastered my episode 13 Change Everything but Change Itself. I discussed the enigma of change, so central to interpreting history. What changes? What endures? What losses do we recover and restore? Which do we mourn and let go? The book I discuss is A Foot in the River: Why Our Lives Change by Felipe Fernández-Armesto.
It is a wonderful book with many wise observations on history, culture, and change. For example, and relevant to mindful history, he made this observation on memory”
Memory is wired to be warped. It is not a highway for time travel: the past to which it takes you never really happened quite in the way you think. Recall is a siren call.
5. What surprised me most this week.
Michael Vlahos, the American historian and strategist, a former teacher at American military academies published an important article ($) - free extracts here - on the staggering losses in Ukraine
Yet in casualties-to-population terms, Ukrainian military losses, after more than 500 days of war, are approaching those sustained by Germany in World War I over more than 1,500 days. This is a catastrophic attrition rate, compounded by all three negative feedback loops that can break an army and a nation. Throughout the spring and summer, Ukrainian forces were thrown into battle and ground down. By autumn, the fighting army will have been spent—the tragic fate of Ukraine’s Best in 2023. By September, what is left will be twisting, and bending toward breaking, in the remorseless winds of war.
Enough said for now. More on the Ruin of Ukraine in September.
6. Gratitudes and Works-in-Progress
I am grateful to my Russian teacher. It is a wonderful thing to read another language, especially when it is a house of being that stores cultural, political and social traditions as rich and complex as those of the Russian мир.
This week my works-in-progress and published content were:
on the podcast I published Episode 113. Can we cope if everything changes all at once?
On the YouTube Channel I had a quiet week, but did some work on SEO and behind the scenes work including a new camera to build my audience. You may expect higher video production quality on YouTube soon.
On Twitter, I did little, but share some of my content from other platforms.
On SubStack I published Glimpses, and a ‘podcast’ reading of an excerpt from Chapter 1 of Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Bureaucrat: Writing on Governing.
I did some research on this business of being an independent author, and sketched some ideas for future podcasts, videos and articles
I renovated my author website to include all my offerings. It is plain as my design skills are basic, but please check it out theburningarchive.com
I prepared my next online course, my Writing in Government Masterclass
Next week, I will be interviewing Felipe Fernández-Armesto for the podcast and the YouTube channel, and will be releasing the next instalment of my Sub-Stack series on the World Crisis, social fragmentation and overwhelming change
On Youtube I am planning a short video of Mindful History and a video version of reading of an excerpt from Chapter 1 of Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Bureaucrat: Writing on Governing.
On Friday on the podcast I should be releasing my interview with Felipe Fernandez-Armesto.
7. What I am Reading and Closing Verse
I read mainly practical things this week, and refreshed my memory of Felipe Fernández-Armesto’s books.
I close the newsletter with a stanza from a poem I have enjoyed during the week. This week please enjoy the closing lines of Tennyson, Ulysses, which describes the spirit of an ageing man and failing hero who may yet do some work of noble note. It is always an inspiration.
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
You can read the whole poem in many anthologies or here.
Until next week, take care, stay sane, strive, seek, find, and do not yield.